Portable consumer devices, such as prepaid cards, have gained acceptance in the transaction industry and increased usage amongst consumers. They provide a convenient method for conducting transactions and transferring funds.
The growth of the portable consumer devices as a payment category has resulted in part to their widespread availability in retail stores, convenience stores, self-service terminals, and supermarkets. Some portable consumer devices are merchant specific wherein they cannot be activated, loaded, reloaded or used in stores other than the merchant's store, such as the Starbucks™ card; other types of merchant specific cards, such as a Barns and Nobles® gift card, can be loaded through a third party, such as a supermarket with an agreement with Barns and Nobles®, but the card can still only be used at the merchant's store. Yet other types of portable consumer devices, such as a debit gift card, have a broader range of usage, being accepted by most merchant stores that accept ordinary credit or debit cards; however, they can only be loaded at merchant stores specifically set up for loading of that particular portable consumer device.
Currently, a portable consumer device is often loaded based on information, such as bar code information, on a package. Bar code loading of the portable consumer device may result in extra processing steps in order for the portable consumer device information to enter a transaction payment processing system, such as a credit or debit card company's payment processing system. For example, after specifically setting up for loading of a portable consumer device, a merchant store may have to use a third party to associates the bar code information to the portable consumer device and send the information to a transaction processing system. Current methods, systems, and apparatus for loading of portable consumer devices may cause error and delay in the activation of the portable consumer device and may not carry with them the convenience of a transaction processing system, such as a payment processing system, that may have standardized methods and rules.
Moreover, fraud issues hinder the development of methods, systems and apparatus for loading of a portable consumer device loading based on account information, such as when the portable consumer device is loaded based on information on the packaging. For example, an issuer of a portable consumer device may scan a bar code on the packaging to activate the portable consumer device within the packaging. However, prior to the scanning of the bar code on the package, a thief may have opened the packaging of the portable consumer device, replaced the original portable consumer device with a substitute item, and waited for the merchant to scan the package containing the substitute item thereby activating the original portable consumer device in the possession of the thief. Thereafter, the thief can deplete the stored value on the original portable consumer device.
It would be desirable to provide methods, systems, and apparatuses that facilitate safely changing the state of a portable consumer device.